berries in their frills; sometimes, too, we have a bowl of tiny
wild strawberries that seem to have grown with their faces close
pressed to the flowers, so sweet and fragrant are they.

This al fresco morning meal makes a delicious prelude to our
comfortable dejeuner a la fourchette at one o'clock, when the
Little Genius, if not absorbed in some unusually exacting piece of
work, joins us and gives zest to the repast. Her own breakfast,
she explains, is a dejeuner a la thumb, the sort enjoyed by the
peasant who carves a bit of bread and cheese in his hand, and she
promises us a sight, some leisure day, of a certain dejeuner a la
toothpick celebrated for the moment among the artists. A
mysterious painter, shabby, but of a certain elegance and
distinction even in his poverty, comes daily at noon into a well-
known restaurant. He buys for five sous a glass of chianti, a roll
for one sou, and with stately grace bestows another sou upon the
waiter who serves him. These preparations made, he breaks the roll
in small bits, and poising them delicately on the point of a wooden
toothpick, he dips them in wine before eating them.

"This may be a frugal repast," he has an air of saying, "but it is
at least refined, and no man would dare insult me by asking me
whether or not I leave the table satisfied."


IV


CASA ROSA, May 20.